IN BRIEF (Page 17)

Irish lender writes off debt

Bank of Ireland Group PLC said yesterday it wrote off 1.8 billion euros ($2.7 billion) in bad loans in its first half and warned that the government's bailout plans could lead to greater state ownership of Ireland's second-largest bank.

For the April-September period, the bank eked out a net profit but said that masked a heavy pre-tax loss of 979 million euros, compared to a 647 million euro gain a year ago, when Ireland's banking crisis was just starting to unfold.